Five Times Elle Bishop Let Her Hair Down
by karrenia
Summary: A look at Elle Bishop in five short acts and written mostly from her point of view.


Disclaimer: Heroes is the creation of Tim Kring and NBC Television, as are all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned; they are not mine, I claim only the words.

Written for comeonEileen in Dragonsinger's 2008 Heroes Heroines Ficathon.

"Five Times Elle Bishop Let Her Hair Down and One Time She Did Not" by Karen

Elle Bishop has never had what anyone outside of the Company would call a normal childhood and she knows this this to be a fact of her life. Not without some effort on her part and some heated arguments with her father, came to grudgingly accept this.

It would be an entirely different proposition were the Company or her handlers to treat her as a merely an extension of their will, a weapon given the nature of her powers, instead of a person. She is important to him, not just as a weapon, but also as his daughter. It's a situation that both found difficult to accept at first, but eventually it got easier.

To Elle's way of thinking it is actually rather perversely amusing to play a little game of to see just how far she can push her father's buttons, as test to see just how far she can go without going over the edge. She admires her father and respects him, but even his judgment is not infallible.

Her powers are proof of that, and sometimes where her powers are needed during a field assignment for the Company, they have butted heads.

Elle smiled at the mental image thus created and leaned back in the padded back of the reclining leather chair in the office, half-closing her eyes, her hands laced behind her head.

Humming an off-key tone without coconsciously being aware that she was doing so, Elle realized that maybe just maybe her father could actually be wrong about how he handled certain field assignments.

Really now, how did he expect her to learn anything about his position if he did not give her a little trust with his files every now and then. She thought about thought, rocking slowly back and forth while she went over in her mind all the various password combinations and logins that she could have used.

When it hit her she opened her eyes and typed it into the computer that sat in front of her

on old-fashioned scrolled desk.

In her current state of mind she wanted very much to find out what had caused the falling-out between her father and Noah Bennett, and it could not have all been due to the cloying, irritating and obnoxious, insufferable little blond chick, Claire Bennett, now could it?

The second time Elle realized that she had an identity apart from that of the Company was

several years ago, she and her father had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday complete with ice-cream, fudge rippled, to be exact and marbled cake, if she recalled correctly.

As a present to commemorate the occasion her father had presented her with tickets to Paris and they had gone on a two-week vacation to the City of Lights, hitting all the main tourist attractions.

Elle remembered that she had worn her hair much longer than, and in the brisk breeze of a Parisian springtime, she had stood at the foot of the massive Notre Dame Cathedral staring up at the massive stone gargoyles standing guard over the gateway of the old church, oblivious of the stream of worshipers and tourists coming and going, while she tried on the various expressions that she saw in the stone gargoyles.

Her father had been indulgent of her antics and had even played along with her for a while, before it got late and they had walked over to a nearby outdoor cafe for a late night supper. It was a good memory, and one that she remembered even now.

It was only later that Elle realized that her father had mixed their vacation with a little bit of business of the Company. In her rather, okay, let's face it, extremely rebellious teenager mind-set it was rather unfair of him to do so, and was nothing if not outspoken.

In fact, she had one more than on occasion tell his colleagues that he had his hands full keeping his daughter in line.

The party of the twelve founding members was an elaborate affair, taking place at a massive chateau on the banks of the river Seine. It was an adults only party, but restrictions like that had never stopped Elle before.

The dinner had been an elaborate black-tie affair, and she recognized several of the big name luminaries within the Company's higher echelons, Kaito Nakamura, Angela Petrelli, to name a few a handful.

Elle had taken up her usual position in the access way just off the main dining hall, with her ear to a small notch-hole and settled in to wait. There was one notable absence, perhaps more telling by that absence than by his presence.

She was not to be disappointed, the conversation had to do with an elaborate plan to be rid of Adam Monroe. This was shocking, for the Twelve, once you were admitted and accepted into the inner circle, it was long being in a club, for life.

Elle grinned, if her father caught her spying on his cronies there most likely would be hell to pay, but for this choice tidbit of information she figured it would be well worth it.

The third time was when she had gone off on her first assignment, a hit really, and she was still feeling out of her ability to wield electricity.

Her father had been furious at her for knocking out the power grid for most of a ten mile block, but he had been proud of his little girl. She had just turned sixteen and as a reward he had presented with the keys to a brand new car, and personally taken her out for driving lessons, instead of assigning to the task to an assistant.

The fourth time was one that Elle did not remember all that well, but she and her father had an argument, the details of which did not really matter much, but she had been so angry at him that she had tried to run away from the Company. Not an easy task under any circumstances, more so, by the fact that he had half-expected it.

In the back of her mind, Elle realized that underneath that image of benevolent good-will there might not be anyone quite as paranoid as Bob Bishop.

She had managed to elude security, and her powers made disabling the electronic surveillance systems a breeze. She had gone to a resort in Cozumel Mexico, with enough money, and a passport to live it up for at least two weeks before she came back, her blonde hair cut much shorter, until it no longer came down to her shoulders, slightly tipsy from all of the alcohol she had consumed, and a tan. She was not exactly contrite or ashamed of her behavior. He did, however, ground her and temporarily taken off active field assignments as a punishment, but that was fine with Elle.

It was actually a rather mild punishment, considering what might have happened.

The fifth and final time Elle did exactly as she was told was her first encounter with Peter Petrelli, and it was more than her reluctance to disobey her father, it was the immediate and somewhat disconcerting magnetic and physical attraction that she felt for him. Here was someone she understood, someone that would be vitally important not just to the Company, but also to her, as a person, as Elle Bishop, the woman.

Perhaps this could be construed as just another gambit in the years-long game of cat and mouse that she played with her father until neither realized any more that was that they were doing, maybe it was more than that. She was being selfish, maybe she wanted more from her life than just everything she knew within the four walls and the strict rules that she lived under.

She almost pitied the young man for what she would have to do him, the poor sap did not even remember his own name but she had her orders and, although, those orders did change at the last minute instead of killing him instead her new orders were to incapticaite and bring him in, alive. Elle smiled and reached over to the dashboard to turn up the heat in her blue rental car.

In the back of her mind Elle thought, "Damn it, when will this cursed Irish rain let up so I get on with my mission?' Oh, this is going to be so sweet, I can barely stand to wait.' Elle smiled and allowed the heater to relax the tension from her muscles as she felt drowsy and allowed her heightened tension to gradually seep away, and she took a little catnap.


End file.
